arrives on thursday, it's right back to budget negotiations with the fiscal cliff deadline less than a week away. >> reporter: as the president wrapped up his vacation, federal workers trickled back into the nation's capital. the only people who can avert the fiscal cliff, members of the house and senate, have not returned. and in just six days, a 2% payroll tax is set to expire, along with the bush-era tax cuts, shrinking the average worker's paycheck in 2013 by about $1,500. long-term unemployment benefits for about 2 million jobless americans are also set to expire, and $110 billion worth of spending cuts to domestic and defense programs will kick in, forcing layoffs in the public and private sector. if congress doesn't act, all the cuts and new taxes will squish the economy back into a mild recession by mid-2013. the impact of some of these new cuts and taxes wouldn't be felt immediately on january 1st because the irs and other agencies didn't expect it to come to this. it could be a few weeks before workers see more money being withheld in their paychecks. >>> george h. w. bush is in i